Wednesday saw the release of the annual Georgia Tech Hall of Fame class and I cannot offer a lot on the Olympic sport members because I do not actively cover that so I'll stick with what I know and offer a few thoughts.
The first name on the list is former OL Andrew Gardner who played at GT before my time covering the program. I can't really offer much on him, I saw him play once or twice during his career at GT covering the game from the opposite side.
Then we get to a goodie, Paul Hewitt the former head coach of the Yellow Jackets and the man who nearly delivered a National Championship in 2004, but was also up and down other than that season with just two other NCAAT wins under his belt in 2005 and 2010. I caught the tail end of Hewitt's run when his staff was not the same caliber as it was early on and he seemingly became hostile and or paranoid toward the media and fans under the strain of the job and the insane contract he signed coming off the 2004 tournament run that gave him an evergreen buyout that angered Tech fans. I actually had a very nice relationship with Hewitt who seemed to enjoy my questions and our basketball discussions during the last two seasons that I covered of his time at Tech.
It was a little maddening watching the team at that time from my perspective as they would often blow games due to coach/executing issues like being unable to inbound the ball against a press or just totally collapsing against a press, but Hewitt had an eye for talent, could land that talent including NBA stars like Chris Bosh, Derrick Favors, and Jarrett Jack.
So the question is more about whether Hewitt is actually a school HOF coach. I think so. He got GT to the edge of the mountain top something that Bobby Cremins wasn't able to pull off, but Cremins got Tech to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four where Hewitt's run was mostly just a two-year deal with the national championship game appearance and then a 2nd round run the next year. Cremins has the court named after him and clearly there will not be a Hewitt court or a Hewitt basket or anything like that. Hewitt will be the 4th former men's basketball head coach enshrined joining Cremins, John Hyder, and Roy Mundorff. All three of those coaches had longer runs than Hewitt, but not the extreme high he had either.
Josh Pastner said, "this is long overdue for coach Hewitt. Anyone who takes a team to the National Championship game at Georgia Tech deserves to be in the Hall of Fame."
Perhaps it is telling of how strong of a coach Hewitt was that the Jackets have been to the NCAAT just once in the 10 seasons since he left, but some of that was more bad luck and a bad hire in Brian Gregory.
QB Josh Nesbitt (2007-10)
This will be my 21st season covering college football and Josh is one of the two toughest football players and quarterbacks I've covered along with Justin Thomas. Josh (also Joshua) Nesbitt willed his team to victories and his play was epitomized by the stealing of the fumble at FSU. He won games especially in 2009 through sheer will at times taking over and dominating with his power as a runner and his ability in that option offense.
Nesbitt's injury in 2010 at VaTech probably set Georgia Tech back two or three seasons IMO because it changed the whole momentum around the program as a green Tevin Washington got thrown into the action and they lost three of the final four games that season that all should've been GT wins.
The other thing that I was always amazed by with Nesbitt was his humility and his leadership qualities that were a little bit different than a rah-rah type guy, he was like a guy working in a coal mine with his hardhat on just grinding away doing his thing. He is one of the five or six greatest QBs in GT history and definitely deserves to be in the GT HOF.
He also had the hilarious ill-fated Heisman Campaign in 2010 that alone is worth digging up at this moment.
